The well established Paul Hunter Classic ran fro August 23 to August 27 2012, in Fürth, Germany. All Grove players, except for Ronnie, were there. The pros started their campaign on Friday, August 25 and Jack featured in the very first match at 9:30 local time. Unfortunately none of them went past the last 32. Read here how the team fared

Friday, August 24, 2012

Last 128

Jack Lisowski 4-0 Oliver Lines
An easy and quick win for Jack there.

Li Yan 4-3 Justin Ashley
Very close and hard fought match this. Li Yan will be happy to be through.

Yu Delu w/o Tian Pengfei

Last 64

Jack Lisowski 2-4 Ryan Day
Looking at the detailed frames scores this must have been a rather closer match than the score suggests, with a very scrappy and hard fought last frame. Ryan came out the winner and he also scored the only break over fifty in the match, a 65.

Li Yan 4-1 Matthew Stevens
75, 74 and 66 helped Li Yan to beat Matthew Stevens quite convincingly.

Yu Delu 4-2 Paul Davison
Good win by Yu against the on form Paul Davison. Paul had the only century of the match, but Yu managed to win the hard fought, fragmented ones and it paid.

Last 32

Li Yan 3-4 Jamie Jones
Li lost this very close and hard fought match against Jamie Jones in the decider. Both players, young and very capable. A bit unlucky they had to meet in the last 32 …

Yu Delu 1-4 Ken Doherty
Ken who earlier today had made his first competitive 147, started the match with a century, a 103. The other frames were a lot closer but it was Ken again who won all but one. Old tactical head on old shoulders.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Last 128

Luca Brecel 4-0 Zhang Anda
Anda wasn’t playing badly but nearly every mistake was punished by a very heavy scoring and confident Luca. Anda could have made it 1-1 probably if he hadn’t be unlucky with a split of the pack and missing the only shot available (bar safety), a tricky plant from distance and maybe, maybe, it would have been a different match. Because from 2-0 up it was all Luca’s, with 91 and 97 to seal the match.

Joe Perry 4-0 Chen Zhe
The score doesn’t reflect how close the match was. Frame scores were 68-56, 59-54, 100-1, 68-58. In the last frame Sleepy won 16 points in penalties … but he eventually lost on the final black. Alas, all this won’t matter, only the final score does.

Stuart Bingham 4-3 Marco Fu
As the live scoring system failed, only 3 frames scores are available at the time of writing. So it’s hard to be sure how it went really but for what is available it was close and big breaks on both sides.

Liang Wenbo 4-1 Alex Davies
Going by the frame scores, this was a rather scrappy match with Wenbo winning the match with a best break of 36… he will need to improve

Judd Trump w/o Hossein Vafaei Ayouri

Last 64

Liang Wenbo 1-4 Judd Trump
Judd won this very tense yet entertaining match with a century to finish. The players offered the audience a bit of everything: excellent shots, some good safeties, unexpected misses and messed up safeties also. The first frame was very scrappy, all other ones featured some big breaks. The last frame was probably the more surprising. Wenbo having done the hard work and opened the reds looked set to make it 2-3 but playing a red at very close range he underhit it so badly that it didn’t reach the pocket by quite a distance, leaving Judd a golden chance that he grabbed with both hands.

Stuart Bingham 4-2 Graeme Dott
Good breaks and heavy scoring from both when in. Must have been a quality match if the story told by the frames scores is to be trusted.

Last 32

Judd Trump 3-4 Barry Hawkins
Judd had a 122 and 92. Barry had a 98 and 85. But the last two frames were fragmented and very hard fought and it’s Barry who took them both.

Stuart Bingham 0-4 Dominic Dale
The sad thing is that Stuart was ahead and with a big lead in all frames but the last and somehow managed to lose them all. All credit to Dominic though, big fighter.